


Around the House

by Teijin



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Gen, Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 06:28:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6743032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teijin/pseuds/Teijin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Playing Tag in the Commonwealth can be scary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Around the House

Tianna was absolutely giddy. Not only was clearing the Feral nest in the old National Guard Training Yard a success and the settlers didn’t have to worry about getting harassed by them again, but there before her was a Power Frame that appeared to be in good condition with a T-45 Torso. The Power Frame alone made this trip worth it and would make getting more salvage back to Sanctuary much easier.

She turned around and threw her arms around Cogsworth’s round body giving him a firm hug. “Oh, Cogsy, this is great. Help me get it checked out and we load up and get out of here.”

“Right away, Mum.”

Working quickly, her pipboy soon showed that the diagnostics were done and satisfactory with a full charge on the fusion core. Next she did a quick field strip of her combat carbine, and .308 pipe sniper rifle, to make sure they were good for the return trip. Lastly she did the same for the 10mm she had named Nate, after her late husband. It was the first firearm she picked up after getting out of the pod, and she was going to use that to kill his murderer; after she made him tell her what happened to her son.

She repacked her weapons and made sure she had easy access to them and the stim packs. Next she stripped out of her mismatched and patchwork field armor. It may not look fashionable, but she was always a function over form kind of girl anyway.

She kept her vault suit on for modesties sake and to spare her unnecessary admonishment from Cogsworth. Pre-bombs, she could swear there was a blush in his voice when he chided her for wearing just a towel from the shower to her bedroom.

She put her auburn hair in a ponytail and used some bobby pins to tuck it up in place under her old army helmet. She stepped up into the frame with a bounce, and settled into a comfortable position within the confining cage of titanium alloy, servos and circuits. She picked up her bag of salvage and gear, and ordered “Sally forth, Cogsworth!”

“Into breach for Sir and Shaun, Mum,” Cogsworth said cheerily.

 

How true those words were.

 

“Intruder alert, weapons free.”

_Ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck_

The unmistakable sound of a sentry bots default voice and its wheels rolling over the ground coming toward them. A head taller than Tianna in the power frame, twice as wide and 4 times as armored as she currently was. This was bad. Very bad. _Very, Very BAD!_

The whine of a minigun from the metal monstrosity and the wiz and dings of 5mm rounds flying by, immediately put Tianna in flight mode, and she turned to run.

“Have at thee, you metal miscreant! You’ll not harm Miss Tianna!” Cogsworth shouted as his pruning saw, spun up and sent only sparks flying as it connected with the sentry bots armor, and his flamer did nothing but make the urban camo paint scheme on the military machine fade and peel more.

_Oh no, Cogsworth, no!_

Tianna screamed, “Play dead, Cogsworth! PLAY DEAD!” even as she picked up speed to run in the opposite direction.

God bless her lovable idiot husband. Nate was allergic to dogs, so instead he insisted that Cogsworth learn to play stupid dog tricks. Cogsworth hated it, until he realized that Shaun giggled and laughed every time he did that. After that, Cogsworth called it charades to keep his dignity, but it was something that the Mr. Handy robot seemed to enjoy.

Cogsworth motions with his arms as he begins to emote, “I were better to be eaten to death with a rust…”

“NOW, COGSY, NOW!”

“Oh right, Mum,” and with a clunk, he tucked his arms close to his body, shuttered his optics and fell to the ground lifeless.

“Intruder eliminated. Continuing pursuit.”

Tianna rounded the corner and urged the frame into a sprint to the front corner of the National Guard Building. The sentry bots wheels spinning through the rubble as it chased after her, keeping her in sight. She danced around the rusting hulls of the cars in the front, turned around and fired her carbine to no effect at the relentless war machine. The whine of the minigun droned out whatever else it was saying, but her attention was actually on the feral ghoul that she nearly tripped over, as she rounded the front of an RTA bus and kept running to the cover of the next corner.

She caught her breath crouching down, hoping not to be seen and by luck, the bot targeted the ghoul, cutting it to shreds in but a moment. “Intruder eliminated. Intruder outside visual sensor range. Conducting search pattern Alpha.”

Counting on the sniper rifle to have more penetrating power, she scoped its head and fired. The bullet hit the breastplate just under its chin. “Damn! I’m going to need a 50 cal to have any chance at all.”

“Intruder detected, weapons free.”

The bot turned toward her bringing the still spinning minigun to bear, causing brick chips to rain on her like hail.

Tianna rolled out and retreated to the back of the building. She looked back as she rounded the corner to see the bot clear the front of the bus, with its weapon still spitting death at her. Sprinting to other rear corner, she spies Cogsworth raise an eye stalk to look around. “Stay down Cogsworth!”

“Right Mum,” but he doesn’t move. “Miss Tianna, your leg. You’ve been injured!”

“Huh?” Tianna looks down to see the right pant leg of the vault suit black and wet from the bloody wound. “Crap!”

She rounds that back corner nearly running into the scaffolding as she fumbles with the stim packs, dropping one and managing to jam two more into her leg at the same time. Even over the adrenaline, the burn from the stims working still makes her teeth hurt and eyes watet, and then the sweet euphoria of relief from a pain you didn’t even know you had.

She rounds the front corner again and is back dodging around the junk cars, when the realization hits her and she laughs. Who knew that 200+ years out of time and she would be playing Around the House with a military autonomous tank just trying to do its job and kill her.

Around the House was a game of tag that she played with her friends when she was about 10 or 11 that you quite literally played ‘around the house’. There were only specific houses you could play it at, since any fence between the front and back yards would prevent a proper game. Here she was with a perfectly good playing field and ‘IT’ is playing for keeps.

Tianna swaps weapons back to the carbine and hides behind a car on the other side of the bus. When the bot makes its appearance, she opens fire, hoping something good will happen and that maybe it will stop moving. Twelve rounds and nothing and it has her position. The mingun begins its banshee wail again with a concentration of bullets striking the car she was using for cover. Backing up and moving again for the rear corner, she hears a pop come from the interior of the car. _Oh fuck!_

Turning tail and sprinting, she rounds the rear corner narrowly avoiding car chunks as it explodes in a blinding fireball and deafening blast behind her. At the next corner, she immediately ducks down and starts ascending the scaffolding that leads up to the roof with barricades and cover positions.

“Intruder outside visual sensor range. Conducting search pattern Alpha.”

Tianna rolls onto the roof and lies flat on her back looking up at the sky and catching her breath. It’s safe up here since the sentry bot is too big to scale the scaffolding to get up to her.

“No intruder detected. Resuming patrol.”

The damn thing was just below her! Tianna peered around the barricade and directly down at its head. She quietly got her carbine ready, taking aim at its head and letting loose with three quick shots, that don’t seem to do much.

“Intruder detected, weapons free.”

That incessant whirl begins again and Tianna has had enough. She targets the weapon arm while shouting, “I am done playing with you, and I AM NOT GOING TO BE ‘IT’!” Eight rounds of .45 slugs slam into the weapon finally mangling it into not working, while the 9th one slams into the joint, severing the arm. The carbine out of ammo, she draws Nate and empties the 10mm clip into the bots beady little head, “Just DIE ALREADY!”

 

Cogsworth swivels two of his eyes around to focus on Tianna and the other on the burning wrecked heap of sentry bot, “Miss Tianna, I think I would like to stop playing charades now and go home.”

Tianna leaps down from her perch on the roof with a resounding thud. “Me too, Cogsy, Me too.”

She inspects his shell, running her fingers over the dents and dings and one long crease that the bullets from the minigun made. “Come on. I’ll hammer those out when we get back to Sanctuary.”

She gathers up the rest of her stuff and sets off for home. When Cogsworth glides up next to her, she reaches out and lightly taps him on one of his eyes, “Tag, your ‘IT’.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1st story, hope you enjoyed


End file.
